Transmissions

This week on Transmissions: the magnificent Neko Case. She’s recently launched Entering the Lung, a newsletter of nature writing. We don't need to tell you that Neko Case is a great writer—her work with the New Pornographers, Case/Lang/Veirs and her solo albums demonstrate that evidently—but it is deeply nice to be able to appreciate her on prose terms via the newsletter. She joined us this week to discuss the mores of the Victorian age, listening to Jane's Addiction, and getting into punk rock. Benefitting her sense of humor, we let this talk roam where she willed.

Today on Transmissions, author, artist, guitarist, and creator Alan Licht. He's the author of Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020. It features some incredible talks with ANOHNI, Tony Conrad, Greg Tate, Yo La Tengo, Kelly Reichardt, Lou Reed, and many more. Licht seemingly never rests—in addition to this fantastic book, he’s part of the new Threshing Floor album—which pairs him with Nate Young and John Olson of Wolf Eyes, Rebecca Odes, and Gretchen Gonzales—produced by El Studio 444 and Transmissions guest Warren Defever. Licht is an artist/writer/and curator, and we touch on all of that in this revelatory talk.

Today on the show, returning Transmissions guest Nick Lowe. 20 years ago, he released The Convincer, which many folks argue is his best album. It's reissued by Yep Roc Records this week. Following his rough and rowdy start at Stiff, his work producing Elvis Costello in the '70s & '80s, and a stint as a genuine pop star following the massive hit “Cruel to Be Kind,” Lowe found himself interested in reinventing the way he made records. The Convincer is part of a long line of albums that embrace subtle pop, R&B, and country tones, with Lowe’s gentle voice leaning into the crooner side of things. Originally released on September 11, 2001, The Convincer helped to establish Lowe’s reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter.

Welcome to Transmissions. Today on the show: Chris Swanson, co-founder of Secretly Group. This year marks 25 years of two of the flagship labels in the group, Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar, and to celebrate they’ve got tons going on—including SC25 Editions, which features titles by Damien Jurado, Anohni, Richard Swift, and more, as well as Merch, with net proceeds benefiting Bloomington’s New Hope For Families. Also of note: Jagjaguwar’s Join the Ritual, a Dungeons and Dragons-inspired release featuring Angel Olsen, Bruce Hornsby, Cut Worms, Jamila Woods, and many more. As a young person exploring record stores, Secretly and Jagjaguwar served as hallmarks of quality—it was a great time getting to settle in with Swanson to discuss the labels’ roots, artists like Anohni, Richard Swift, Jason Molina, Bon Iver, and more.

Thanks for joining us on Transmissions. Our guest this week is Bela Koe-Krompecher, who’s written a terrific book called Love, Death, & Photosynthesis, about his time in the ‘80s rock & roll underground of Columbus, Ohio, and the tumultuous lives—and far too early deaths—of his friends Jerry Wick of the punk band Gaunt and Jenny Mae Leffel, a talented but tortured singer songwriter. Deeply felt and alternately moving and hilarious (as well as moments that encompass both zones), it's a great read, and Bela proved as charming, open, and human as readers might expect in this special conversation about music, its place in our lives, friends lost, and memories held.

This week on Transmissions, Jon Wurster, the drummer of Mountain Goats, Bob Mould Band, and Superchunk and one-half of Scharpling and Wurster, the long running radio comedy duo as featured on The Best Show. In his wide-ranging talk with Jason Woodbury, he discusses growing up in Philadelphia during the birth of punk and alternative rock, working with Replacements producer Jim Dickinson in the mid-'80s, his experiences at Sun Records, getting the call to join Superchunk, and much more.

As a curator at the Alan Lomax Archive, Nathan Salsburg is no stranger to reaching deep into the past to bring forth music that speaks to us in the present moment. As a guitarist and songwriter, he's primarily focused on instrumental sounds, but on his new album, Psalms, he offers forth new folk arrangements of Hebrew psalms, singing himself and gathering together other vocalists, like Joan Shelley and Will Oldham, and contributors like James Elkington and Spencer Tweedy, to animate and explore these scriptures. This week on Transmissions, Salsburg joins host Jason Woodbury from his place in rural Kentucky to discuss the album, conceptions of the divine, life as a new parent, and much more.

“Music shapes us and fundamentally changes us. Once we have listened we do not stop. We do not ever recover from music. We will return again and again to the radio, the record store, the bedroom where girls listen to records all day.” That’s a quote from Rickie Lee Jones’ new book, Last Chance Texaco. She joins us today on Transmissions from New Orleans to discuss the book and her experiences in California and Arizona in the ‘70s, when she became a huge star. From her youthful and rebellious days in Phoenix to scoring a massive hit with "Chuck E.'s In Love," Jones joins us to discuss it all and more.

A sprawling talk with record maker John Leckie. As a tape operator at Abbey Road, he oversaw the All Things Must Pass and Plastic Ono Band sessions and rolled tape on Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Fela Kuti, and more. Soon he began producing records, and he's gone on to work with Radiohead on The Bends, plus Dr. John, Spiritualized, My Morning Jacket, and many more. He joins host Jason Woodbury this week on Transmissions to discuss his extensive history and much more.

A sit down with bassist and composer Melvin Gibbs. Emerging from the fertile New York art scene of the early '80s where he played with Defunkt, Gibbs has brought grace and heaviness to work with Arto Lindsey, John Zorn, Caetano Veloso, Bill Frisell, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock, and dozens more jazz luminaries, in rock bands like Rollins Band and Harriet Tubman, and on records by dead prez and David Byrne. His latest project is an EP, 4 + 1 equals 5 for May 25. which reflects on the murder of George Floyd and the spirit of the protests that arose in its wake. He also teams with visionary drummer Greg Fox and guitarists Sahsa-Frere Jones and Grey McMurray in Body Meπa, which recently released The Work Is Slow, a mind-melter of rock abstraction. Gibbs joined host Jason P. Woodbury for a wide-ranging discussion this week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions.

This week on Transmissions: Anika. Best known for her work with Geoff Barrow and Mexico City's Exploded View, she returns with Change, an album of subtle electronic pop, driving bass lines, and lyrics that veer from quixotic to inspiring. Anika joined us for a discussion about her time as a journalist, the shifting state of reality, and crafting an album amidst a global pandemic.

Today on the show, Brazilian singer/songwriter Rodrigo Amarante joins us to discuss his new album, Drama. A lush and enveloping listen, it blends gentle pop with cinematic flourishes. Reflecting on the confines of masculinity, his artistic relationships with Noah Georgeson, Devendra Banhart, Little Joy, Los Hermanos, and much more, this conversation presents Amarante in a reflective, riffy, and casual mode. "Art is supposed to pull the rug, do something to you," Amarante says. Join us for a little creative rug pulling, this week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions.

It’s a bonus episode for you as we head into the weekend. Today on the show we're joined by Ripley Johnson of Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips, and most recently, Rose City Band. Reviewing the latter’s excellent Earth Trip, an album of rural psychedelia, Aquarium Drunkard’s Tyler Wilcox praised Johnson’s zoned out guitar work, noting that his guitar “solos are always on point, often drifting into Garcia-like zones without ever slipping into pointless idolatry. He’s developed into a guitarist who rarely takes a wrong step, minimal, moody, and lovely.” Johnson joined us for a conversation about coming up in the punk and counter culture scene, his multiple bands, the influence of the Dead, and “the ultimate rock & roll statement” of ? and the Mysterians' “96 Tears.”

Today on the program: Tom Scharpling of The Best Show and Double Threat. He’s written a deeply funny and moving new book called It Never Ends, available now wherever you get books. It documents his early days writing and producing a DIY fanzine, working his way into TV writing with Monk, and establishing a lifelong friendship and comedy partnership with drummer Jon Wurster. It’s also a candid look at his struggles with mental health, and while some moments are harrowing, it’s ultimately an inspirational read—an underdog story from a guy who’s especially good at giving voice to the underdog. And again, very funny. Scharpling joined us to discuss the book, his incredible sound collages, Lou Reed, CSNY, Brian Eno, King Crimson, and more.

This week on Transmissions, a heady conversation with Carlos Niño about spontaneous composition, the influence of hip-hop culture, his radio roots, and his latest, More Energy Fields, Current. "...Frequently, I would say I'm doing some version of supercomputing, where I'm completely free in the moment and I'm also bookmarking sections I know I want to get back to." From his days at dublab to his partnerships with artists like Laraaji and Iasos and much more, we're glad to have Niño on.

This week on the show, Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance. His new album is called The Veiled Sea, out this week via Three Lobed Records. Six Organs records can often sound very different from each other—think quiet acoustic sketches or long, blown out psych epics—but this one is a whole new thing entirely, with wild glam inspired solos over wild riffs—plus there’s a Faust cover. Chasny stopped by to discuss the new album, his work with Comets on Fire, his trio with Sir Richard Bishop and Chris Corsano, Rangda, the dubious “freak folk” term and much more.

Welcome to a special bonus episode of Transmissions. Our guest this episode is musician and writer Jeffrey Silverstein. His new EP of gently cosmic guitar music is called Torii Gates, and he's the head the wonderful It’s So Easy (When You Know What You’re Doing), a tribute to the late cult folk musician Ted Lucas, featuring AD favorites like John Andrews & the Yawns, Julianna Barwick and William Tyler, Barry Walker Jr., Amelia Courthouse, and more. He’s also a teacher and a runner, and we get into it all on this special bonus episode of Transmissions. Please rate and review the podcast. Share it on your social media pages, share it via whatever platform you have. We count on word of mouth, so if you like the program, help us out. If you want to take your support a little deeper, check us out on Patreon.

Our guest this week on the show is singer/songwriter John Grant. You might know him from his work with Midlake, the Czars, Sinéad O'Connor or Hercules and Love Affair. His new album is called Boy From Michigan. It's produced by Cate Le Bon and fascinating, Blade Runner synths pulsing underneath incredible melodies and vocal performances. Grant joined Jason P. Woodbury for a freewheeling and candid talk, this week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions.

Our guest this week is Cécile Schott, who records under the name Colleen. Since the early 2000s, she's generated soulful electronic and ambient music, utilizing vintage synths, drum machines, music boxes, and acoustic instruments. Her latest is called The Tunnel and the Clearing. It was recorded in Barcelona during the lockdown and followed a long period of illness and heartbreak for Schott. The resulting album is indeed melancholy, but also hopeful and staggeringly beautiful. She joined us from her home studio for a discussion about her discography, the circumstances that led to the new album, the influence of dub and reggae, and how the studio process influences her bold and original work.

Music is never incidental in a movie made by our guest this week: director, collage artist, and music maker Jim Jarmusch. Music is part of his films’ DNA, a through line running through his characters’ black comedy gags and existential wanderings. There’s no stylistic template—everything from crazed blues to ambient drones have soundtracked Jarmusch’s films—but the director ties songs together with an unmatched patience and style. The soundtrack to one of those motion pictures—2014’s vampire yarn Only Lovers Left Alive—was recently reissued by Sacred Bones. It features Jim’s band, SQÜRL, his frequent collaborator lutenist Jozef Van Wissem, and guest appearances by Madeline Follin of Cults, Zola Jesus, and Yasmine Hamdan. Jim joined us from his place in upstate New York to discuss the pastoralism that defines his creative practice these days, his early days, collaborators like John Lurie and Steve Buscemi, and of course music—Neil Young, Tom Waits, Iggy, Wu-Tang Clan, and beyond.

Guitarist, songwriter, and producer Sarah Louise joins us this week on the show to discuss her new album, Earth Bow. Though Louise is known for her 12-string folks fantasias, her work is wide ranging, evoking the soundscapes of Robert Fripp and the interlocked rhythms of electronic pop. Reviewing the album for AD, Josh Moss writes that while "Louise is an incredibly gifted guitar player...Earth Bow de-centers the guitar, rendering it an integral part of a lush musical environment, as detailed and sensory as a blooming forest looks from within." Louise joined us for a return visit to Transmissions to discuss being off the grid, the perils of social media, and her spiritual and creative practice.

Welcome back. Our guest this week on the show is Wadada Leo Smith, trumpeter, music theorist, and composer. Over his many years, he’s pioneered his own musical notation system, helped popularize and contextualize Miles Davis’s electric period, and has played with a wide set of collaborators including Bill Frisell, Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Anthony Braxton, and many more. In December, he’s turning 80, and TUM Records is celebrating with a year-long slate of releases. Up first, on May 21st, Sacred Ceremonies, a three volume set, featuring Wadada in a duo setting with Milford Graves, a duo setting with Bill Laswell, and a trio with the both of them. He joined us to discuss his long career, Miles Davis, sacred wanderings, Civil Rights, and much more. We hope you enjoy this one. If you enjoy Transmissions, please rate, review, subscribe, and spread the word. If you want to take your support a step further, Aquarium Drunkard is on Patreon. It’s an honor to have a legend of creative music with us—so let’s get into it. You’re listening to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions. Here’s my conversation with Wadada Leo Smith.

Our guest this week is guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson. One of the founding fathers of British folk rock, he's the author of a new book, Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice (1967-1975). It chronicles the early days of his band, Fairport Convention, the launch of his solo career, run-ins with Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, a lost jam session with Led Zeppelin, and his collaborations with Linda Thompson, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, John Martyn. He joins Jason P. Woodbury to discuss it all and more this week on Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions.

Our guest on the show this week is J Mascis. Along with Lou Barlow and drummer Murph, he formed Dinosaur Jr in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984. After their original run, which ended acrimoniously in 1989, Mascis continued on with Dinosaur Jr, the Fog, and plenty of other wiggy and interesting side projects. But in 2005, the original Dino Jr. lineup returned with a genuine comeback classic, Beyond. Since then, they’ve reliably put out a great album every couple of years. Plenty of bands come back in some diminished form, but not these guys. Their latest is Sweep It Into Space, produced by previous Transmissions guest Kurt Vile and Mascis. It’s full of incredible riffs and trademark melodic resignation. It was great to have J on to discuss it, along with his solo albums, early SST days, playing with heroes like Ron Asheton of the Stooges, and more. Listen for a special appearance by J’s dog, Candy.

This week on Transmissions, we're digging into the Aquarium Drunkard vault for a 2016 conversation with the late New Age pioneer, composer, author and creator Joanna Brouk. An edited and condensed version of this conversation was published in 2016, but we are happy to present it here in its uncut form. Brouk passed away April 28th, 2017. Her remarkable recordings can be heard on Numero Group’s Hearing Music, a double lp set assembled by producer Douglas Mcgowan, who's known for his work on Light in the Attic’s New Age compilation I Am the Center, which also features Brouk. An alum of Mills College—which recently announced it will no longer be accepting new pupils—she joined us to discuss her time at the legendary synthesizer school, her roots in sound poetry, KPFA radio program, and much more.

As we've noted here before, Durham-based songwriter al Riggs keeps very busy. Their new album is called I Got a Big Electric Fan to Keep Me Cool While I Sleep. Though they bounce around genre-wise, this LP is rooted in country rock traditions and it features contributions from cosmic pedal steel guitarist Chuck Johnson, Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country, and others. Riggs joined us for a discursive chat, exploring their relationship with country music and, of course, Robert Altman's failed cult film Popeye. Remember to rate and review Transmissions, send to folks who might find it interesting, and check us out on Patreon to support our cultural reportage, podcasts, radio programs, and more.

This week on the show, Chicago’s Angel Bat Dawid. A composer, clarinetist, poet, and vocalist, she’s one of the shining stars of the International Anthem label, where she’s issued some incredible records like Live, with her band Tha Brotherhood, as well as the Oracle and the Transition East single. She also plays with other groups, like Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble—she’s featured prominently on their incredible new album, NOW, which blends free jazz and hypnotic R&B. Angel joined us to discuss record collecting, the influence of Sun Ra, her history with music and religion, her creative practice, race, and much more. We like to have fun on this podcast, but Angel took things to another level with this playful and deep reaching talk, and I’m very thankful for her doing so. Transmissions is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. If you want to get some cool stuff—our new print journal is well under way, plus bonus audio, radio shows, and much more—head over and check it out. If you want to support the show, remember you can rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts and please do click that share button.

Pino Palladino and Blake Mills are two of the most dynamic studio wizards in music and they join us this week on Transmissions to discuss Notes With Attachments, their Impulse! Records-released collaborative long-player. Backed by a set of LA studio heavyweights like saxophonist Sam Gendel, drummer Chris Dave, organist Larry Golding, and others. Known for their individual collaborations with artists like Bob Dylan, D'Angelo, The Who, Fiona Apple, and Brittany Howard, these two go completely unexpected places as they unite for a set of jazzy instruments that blur the lines between J. Dilla flips, Cuban shuffles, and West African lock grooves. They joined host Jason P. Woodbury for a discussion about keeping track of ideas, the genesis of their collaboration, and the value of knowing how to shake out of creative ruts. Transmissions airs wherever you get podcasts every Wednesday, check back weekly for new episodes and visit our Patreon to support and access bonus podcast content.

This week on the show, we're joined by poet and music journalist Noah C. Lekas and Ethan Miller of Howlin' Rain and Comets on Fire. They've got a new collaboration featured on Sounds From the Shadow Factory, a 10" record from Blind Owl: a rock & roll adaptation of "Saturday Night Sage," the poem from Lekas' recent book of the same name. The two joined us for a discussion about spoken word, their paths in psychedelia, blue collar mysticism, and the current state of the counterculture. Heading deep underground, this week on Transmissions.

Our guest this week on Transmissions is Martin Courtney of Real Estate. On March 26th, the long-running New Jersey group releases its new EP, Half a Human, which embraces the jammier side of the band and continues the stylistic explorations of 2020's The Main Thing. We discussed record stores, adjusting to life without live music, Twin Peaks, and Courtney's 2015 solo album Many Moons—and its forthcoming follow up. We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you do, consider sharing it with a friend. And if you need more, you can check out the archive, which feature dozens of talks with artists, writers, and other creators. You can hear Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions wherever podcasts are found, and it’s always available for direct download here, and you can subscribe via our RSS feed. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, check out our Patreon page, and email us your thoughts about the show.

Description: Our guest this week on the show is Shahzad Ismaily, whose recorded with, well, he’s recorded with a lot of people, from Moses Sumney and Sam Amidon to Beth Orton, Martha Wainwright, Yoko Ono, Bonnie Prince Billy, Jolie Holland, and many, many more. With his buddies Ches Smith and Marc Ribot, he’s a member of the punk jazz outfit Ceramic Dog, and last year he released Visitations with Leo Abrahams on his own label, Figureight Records. We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you do, consider sharing it with a friend. And if you need more, you can check out the archives, which feature dozens of talks with artists, writers, and other creators. You can hear Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions wherever podcasts are found, and it’s always available for direct download here, and you can subscribe via our RSS feed. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, check out our Patreon page, and email us your thoughts about the show.

This week on Transmissions: Detroit’s own Warren Defever of Third Man Records and the experimental pop group His Name is Alive. Since the mid-80s, HNIA has released over a hundred records, EPs, and projects on labels like 4AD, Rykodisc, Time STEREO, and Unsung Hunger. Recently Warren has been exploring way back in the archives, sharing some of the work that caught the ear of Ivo-Watts Russell, who eventually signed His Name Is Alive in the ‘90s. A new boxset collects it all, A Silver Thread: Home Recordings (1979-1990). He’s been tinkering and reworking a lot of that material too, and as always there’s no loyalty to genre or anything like that, on releases like Ghost Tape EXP and Return Versions. Warren’s a music lifer, a classic record person. He does archival audio work with Third Man Records in Detroit and sometimes he’ll put something out there for the internet to pass around like treasure, like “Every Thin Lizzy Guitar Solo 1971-1983,” a CD-R where he edited all that shredding together into a transcendent mega mix. We talked about that—and a lot more—for this particularly loose episode of Transmissions.

Our guest this week is Amanda Petrusich, author of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, the the Search for the Next American Music, and Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78 rpm Records. She's also a critic at the New Yorker. She joined us from her place in upstate New York to discuss balancing comfort listening and new sounds, Bob Dylan’s Christian era, Harry Smith, musical mysticism, and much more.

Legendary music writer Peter Guralnick joins us this week on Transmissions. He's been writing about the blues, rock & roll, soul, and R&B since the late 1960s. His latest book is called Looking To Get Lost: Adventures in Music & Writing. It is a book about the creativity that fueled artists like Johnny Cash, Robert Johnson, Ray Charles, Dick Curless, and Howlin' Wolf, who Guralnick says viewed his music as an expression "not just of personal freedom but of personal difference." He joins us for an open discussion about the early days of music journalism, artistry, and the curiosity that fuels his work.

Northern California mysticism with Fletcher Tucker. His latest album of ritualistic folk music is called Unlit Trail. Like the previous, Cold Spring, it's a record that settles deep into the sacred nature of existence. It's an lp designed to welcome the listener "into a liminal state, beyond ordinary awareness," and into the unknown. Tucker joined us to discuss Star Trek, animism, family and the deep history of his instruments and home in Big Sur, California.

Hope you're enjoying the new season of Aquarium Drunkard's Transmissions. Here's a good one from the archives, a favorite of Timothy Showalter of Strand of Oaks a roundtable talk with three lifers: Howe Gelb, Robyn Hitchcock, and Steve Wynn. The three share similar paths through scenes and the industry, their paths are shared but divergent, and there’s a spiritual unity at work even in their differences. With his band Giant Sand, Howe Gelb pens strange, dusty songs about love and the desert. Both solo and with his Paisley Underground pioneering band the Dream Syndicate, Wynn composes driving minimalist rock sagas (a recent 11-disc boxset documents much of his range) . And after emerging from the UK punk scene with the Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock has embarked on a career full of wry and funny songs that skewer pop conventions. We spoke in August of 2018 when they performed at HOCO Fest in Tucson, Arizona, a place where they all share considerable history. This interview was recorded at the KXCI studio at the historic Hotel Congress. Please enjoy this one from the vault.

On her second lp, the newly released Urban Driftwood, Virginia-based guitarist Yasmin Williams creates expansive acoustic music. Playing guitar, kalimba, percussion, and kora, she pulls from disparate musical strands—including the smooth jazz she heard growing up—into music that feels spiritually connected to New Age music, Windham Hill guitar, and the work of contemporaries like Daniel Bachman (who calls her "a guitarist for a new century"), William Tyler, and Marisa Anderson, both whom she's recently collaborated. She joined us for a conversation about being a Black artist in a primarily white genre, how she taught herself guitar, and how she processes the "American Primitive" genre tag.

Tamara Lindeman joins us this week on Transmissions for a conversation about Ignorance, her lush and sweeping new album as The Weather Station. Lindeman is the kind of songwriter who dares to write about big topics, like identity and global climate change, but the new album finds her exploring those concepts over deeply rhythmic jazz and pop-influenced compositions. It's out Friday, February 5 on Fat Possum Records. Lindeman joined us from her home in Ontario, to discuss the pandemic, the information overload of daily life, and how she's come to embrace the performative side of artistic practice.

This week we're happy to welcome Margo Price to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions for a talk about the music industry, her creative partnership with husband Jeremy Ivey, her online radio show, forays into the cannabis business, and her latest rock and seventies pop inspired lp, That's How Rumors Get Started. Bold and strident, it's a record that finds her blurring genres, like many of her country heroes, people like John Prine, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. Plus, she fills us in on some of the details about an as of yet unreleased collaboration with the queen of outlaw country, Jessi Colter. We hope you enjoy this conversation. If you do, consider sharing it with a friend. And if you need more, you can check out the archives, which feature dozens of talks with artists like Nels Cline, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Swamp Dogg, and many more. You can hear Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions wherever podcasts are found, and it’s always available for direct download here. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, check out our Patreon page, and email us your thoughts about the show.

It’s 2021 and Aquarium Drunkard’s Transmissions podcast is back. Every Wednesday, your host Jason P. Woodbury sits down with a fascinating guest for a rolling conversation about art, process, and inspiration. To kick off our new season, we’re joined by Nels Cline. Known for his many varied solo projects, work in Wilco, and a long history of collaboration with artists like Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and many more. His latest work, out now via the legendary Blue Note label, is called Share the Wealth. Backed up by the Nels Cline Singers—punk jazz saxophonist Skerik, keyboardist Brian Marsell, bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer Scott Amendola and Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista—it features the heavier side of Cline’s playing, but also his signature fluidity and extended jams. Cline joined us to explore the new record, discuss what being off the road has been like, and talk about his early days: falling in love with collaboration alongside his twin brother Alex, working in record stores, and how his life changed when he joined Wilco.

Our guest this week is Patrick McDermott of North Americans. His latest is called Roped In and its blissed out guitar-scapes find him teaming up with cosmic pedal steel master Barry Walker Jr, William Tyler, and Mary Lattimore. He reached us from his place in Los Angeles to discuss pleasant zones, video games, and some particularly good lunches. A quick note: this is the final episode of our season. We're going to take a break but don't you sweat it, we'll be back early in 2021 with more strange conversations for our strange times. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Transmissions art by D. Norsen and Heavy Hymns. Justin Gage, head honcho and executive producer.

This week, we're joined by returning guest Chris Schlarb of Psychic Temple and Big Ego, his studio in Long Beach. His latest is called Houses of the Holy, a four-sided double-album, featuring a different band on each side: Cherry Glazerr with garage pop, the Chicago Underground Trio with their jazz inflection, psych warriors the Dream Syndicate, and rapper and producer Xololanxinxo. Schlarb took some time out of his holiday season to speak with us about the creative ethos driving his work. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Transmissions art by D. Norsen and Heavy Hymns. Justin Gage, head honcho and executive producer.

This week on Transmissions, we welcome back a return guest: desert scribe and radio personality Ken Layne. He’s the editor of Desert Oracle, a pocket-sized field guide to the American Southwest and the host of Desert Oracle Radio, a weekly late-night broadcast out of Joshua Tree. With synthesist RedBlueBlackSilver in tow, Layne offers up tales of the paranormal, the odd, and the arcane. Layne illuminates these damned and or transcendent topics with good humor and dusty charm. This week, he releases a new book which collects and expands stories from the program and the magazine, Desert Oracle Volume 1: Strange and True Tales From the American Southwest. He joins us for a far-reaching conversation about the new book, the allure of the weird, the late ’80s underground music scenes of Southern California, the early days of digital publishing, conspiracy theory and literature, the disenchantment of modern life, and of course, venturing into the spiritual wilderness represented by the desert. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Transmissions art by D. Norsen. Justin Gage, head honcho and executive producer. Show notes and more at Aquarium Drunkard.

This week on Transmissions, we're joined by sound healer, reiki practitioner, and avant-garde composer Devi Mambouka, better known as Masma Dream World. Her latest LP is called Play At Night, out on Northern Spy Records. It’s a blend of subterranean bass, spooky backwards masked poetry, and shifting, nocturnal soundscapes designed to entrance, inviting you to examine your “preconceived relationship with darkness, guiding you to step into it—to play in it.” Mambouka took some time out of a weekend last month to speak with us about her global backstory, discuss how DJing influenced her alchemical approach, and play around with the concept of darkness. We hope you enjoy this one. If you do, share it with a friend. Let them know they can listen wherever they get podcasts. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, check out our Patreon page, send an email letting us know what you like about the show. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Art by D. Norsen and Heavy Hymns. Justin Gage, executive producer, seer, and captain.

You’re tuned into Transmissions, where each week Aquarium Drunkard presents a strange conversation for these strange times. Today on the show we’re joined by Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Makers. The Markers’ new album 2020 is out now on Drag City. It’s a gloriously smeared burst of noise, raw riffs, and damaged country and folk songs. Ambrogio joined us to discuss the importance of good quarantine companion, living out west, and getting into music—really inhabiting it—before you are even sure what you are doing. We hope you enjoy this one. If you do, share it with a friend. Let them know they can listen wherever they get podcasts. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, or check out our Patreon page, where you can help us keep the lights on. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Art by D. Norsen. Justin Gage, head honcho and executive producer.

Incoming transmission from...Yves Jarvis. The singer/songwriter/producer's latest is called Sundry Rock Song Stock, and it's a blur of soft-focus pop and shimmering melodic mirages. He joined us from the Tree Museum in Ontario to discuss his interest in progressive rock, creative approach, the disparate influence of Joni Mitchell, Bill Bruford, and Kanye. Plus, a check in with Vic Berger IV and Doug Lussenhop of Tim Heidecker's Office Hours regarding their upcoming noise-show-slash-audio-visual experience, Drop Concert: The Motion Picture, featuring a baffling sonic collage of clips, loops, and found sound drops combined with Heidecker's improvised keyboard and animation by Ben Levin. We hope you enjoy this one. If you do, share it with a friend. Let them know they can listen wherever they get podcasts. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, or check out our Patreon page, where you can help us keep the lights on. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Art by D. Norsen and Heavy Hymns. Justin Gage, sage, guide, and executive producer.

Transmissions…strange talks for these strange days. This week on the show, we’re joined by ambient hero William Basinski and his collaborator and engineer Preston Wendel. They’ve got two wildly divergent projects out this year. In July, they released To Feel Embraced a collection of saxophone-laden lounge and electronica under the name Sparkle Division. And on November 13th, they release William Basinski’s Lamentations, which assembles more than 40 years of archival tape loops and studies from his archives. The dual albums encompass the ecstatic highs and dread-soaked lows of this strange year. We spoke with the duo in September, when it was still warm out enough to take a dip in the pool about doom scrolling, iPhone recordings, cutting loose, and much more. Thanks for tuning in. We hope you enjoy this one. If you do, share it with a friend. Let them know they can listen wherever they get podcasts. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, or check out our Patreon page, where you can help us keep the lights on. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Art by D. Norsen and Heavy Hymns. Justin Gage, head honcho and executive producer.

Bonus episode! We put out episodes every Wednesday and we have already done so this week—a great chat with novelist and podcaster Hari Kunzru—but since this week being the week it has been, we’re in an energetic mood. So here we are. Our guest for this extra episode is John Darnielle. Since 1991, he’s released music under the Mountain Goats banner, in addition to writing a couple of great books, including Wolf in White Van and Universal Harvester. He’s got two albums out this year—first, a lo-fi boombox recorded tape, Songs for Pierre Chuvin, and now, Getting Into Knives, recorded with the full Mountain Goats band and producer Matt Ross-Sprang at Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, the same place people like Booker T. Jones, Alex Chilton, the Cramps, Three-6-Mafia, Roy Orbison and many more have cut albums. His songs have hailed Satan and cast possums in a theological light. He’s written about myths, tragic heroes, and people trying to unwreck themselves. Getting Into Knives is yet another winner from Darnielle. We were very excited to speak with him about it (and talk about his incredible AD Lagniappe Session). Hope you enjoy this one. If you do, share it with a friend. Let them know they can listen wherever they get podcasts. If you want to take your support a step further, you can leave us a review, or check out our Patreon page, where you can help us keep the lights on. Transmissions is hosted and produced by Jason P. Woodbury. Andrew Horton edits our audio. Jonathan Mark-Walls produces content for our social media and video outlets. Art by D. Norsen and Heavy Hymns. Justin Gage, head honcho and executive producer. We’ll be back this week too, Wednesday, with another Transmission. Until then, take it easy. Further reading: John Darnielle :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

This week on Transmissions, Hari Kunzru in conversation with host Jason P. Woodbury. Kunzru is a novelist and writer; his latest is called Red Pill. It’s about a writer who receives a fellowship in Germany, where he finds himself sucked into a spiral of reactionary thinking. His other 2020 project is a podcast called Into the Zone, from Puskin Industries. It’s a podcast about, well, to put it in reductive terms, the opposite of reactive thinking. Examining the liminal space between borders—visiting Stonehenge, remarking on the early days of the internet, examining what divides country from the blues, and even what constitutes life—and what constitutes death—Kunzru blurs binaries and swims in the waters of the undefined and fascinating.

Incoming transmission from Joe Wong. He's an incredibly busy guy: he hosts the Trap Set, a weekly interview podcast he’s helmed since 2015, where he sits down with artists like Mix Master Mike, Sharon Van Etten, Jim Keltner, Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo, among many others. He also makes music for film in TV—you’ve probably heard his work on Master of None, Russian Doll, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Midnight Gospel. Joe has long played music with artists like Mary Timony of Helium and Marnie Stern, but recently, he released his debut solo long player, Nite Creatures. Produced by Timony, who also plays on it, it finds him joined by members of Flaming Lips, War on Drugs, and that dog. for a set of deeply cinematic psychedelic pop, which brings to mind the mystical lushness of Scott Walker, the Zombies, and Pink Floyd. One of the albums best songs “Dreams Wash Away” was featured in Duncan Trussel’s Midnight Gospel finale on Netflix—one of the most affecting things you’ll see all year, and like that episode, Nite Creatures grapples with mortality and existential dread, but remains vivid, colorful, and beautiful.